Supergirl A Modern Reimagining
by CK Marshall
Summary: This is an out-and-out Supergirl origin story. No other heroes exist in this continuity, there's just Supergirl and it's how I wanted to tell the story. Villains are a nod to Selena from the movie and Gorilla Grod.


Supergirl

By C.K. Marshall

**Chapter One**

"A Busy Lunch Break"

_**Expressway Overpass, 10 miles outside of downtown Capitol City, left turn lane, approximately 11am…**_

Miles Thomas put his head down on the steering wheel of his semi-truck cab and groaned. While making a left turn after getting off of the expressway now below him, he'd somehow managed to miscalculate the turn so badly that his rig had become stuck. With impatient traffic close behind him while angry motorists passed by on the passenger side, he couldn't even maneuver the vehicle to get himself out of it.

An experienced CDL driver, he couldn't believe he'd made an error this egregious. Certainly, he was tired from driving all night and through this morning, but such was the life of a long distance truck driver and since he'd been doing it for years, he'd gotten used to it. But this had never happened to him before, so he wasn't sure what to do and had been debating calling the police for help.

Of course, he'd hesitated because that would certainly mean a citation and could endanger his job with the trucking company he worked for. Then again, someone had probably already alerted the authorities about his current predicament, because the honking horns had stopped suddenly a few moments ago, and he'd put his head down to wait for an officer to approach the vehicle.

That was when he heard someone knocking on his door. Startled, he lifted his head and moved to look out the window- he hadn't heard any sirens and he saw no police cruiser in his forward view. He was surprised to find only a teenage girl standing outside, waving up at him and indicating he should roll down his window. As he did so, she inexplicably rose up to eye level with him, folding her arms over her chest. She wore a costume of some sort- a nearly form-fitting white t-shirt emblazoned with a diamond-shaped crest centered on the chest with a yellow background overlaid with a red, roughly S-shaped symbol through it, a dark belt holding up a denim skirt that stopped at a nearly suggestive two inches above her knees. On her feet were red boots that looked as if they'd been purchased at the local mall. Her blonde hair was shoulder length, a white cloth headband kept her locks from obscuring her vision, she had crystalline blue eyes, and flashed an easy smile. The red cape attached at her shoulders billowed out behind her in the wind along with her hair. She was very pretty, with soft features and wholesome good looks to go along with her clearly muscular but lithe frame.

"Hi," she said in a warm and friendly tone, her voice oozing self-confidence. "Do you need a hand?" She gestured toward the trailer. Miles frowned, uncertain of what the girl might be getting at. She couldn't have been more than sixteen years old- she was just a kid. What could she do? Behind her, he could see the stunned faces of commuters who'd exited their vehicles and still others taking pictures or recording video of the incident on their cell phones.

Miles had no idea how to respond to her, so he blurted the first thing that came to his mind.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" he asked. The girl laughed.

"I think," she replied, reaching out and giving his shoulder a playful squeeze, "that you have bigger problems right now than worrying about why I'm not at school."

She was right about that. "Well, what can you do?" he asked.

"I'll show you." She somehow dropped slowly to the ground and waited for him as he unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the truck. He was surprised to find her to be of average height- maybe five feet six inches without the boots- and he wondered again how in the world she'd managed to come face to face with him while he was in the truck. She wasn't tall enough to do it standing on the running board he used to get in and out.

She gestured for him to follow her as people continued watching, recording, and photographing them. The truck's trailer was wedged on the corner, and he was lucky he hadn't broken anything and sent pieces of concrete tumbling down to the busy freeway below to cause even more traffic havoc. The two cars closest to his rear had occupants- a man and two women, respectively- who'd come out of their vehicles to get a better look at the strangely costumed girl. For her part, the girl seemed either not to notice or not to care that everyone had taken such an interest in her. She put her hands on her hips and appeared to size up the situation when they stopped at the rear of the trailer.

Turning to the two women, she said, "Can you move your car, just a bit?" They exchanged a look, but one of the women got in, put the vehicle into reverse, and backed away. Then the girl did something impossible: she walked up to the trailer and _picked it up_. The action took little effort judging from her expression. She simply lifted it as a normal person might move a folding chair- as all of the onlookers gasped, pointed, and generally reacted with awe- moved a couple of steps over, and set it down.

She wiped her hands together as she came back over to a stunned Miles.

"That ought to take care of it," she said, satisfied.

"Thanks," he managed, still unable to believe what he'd just seen.

She seemed to notice everyone watching her for the first time and waved to them, smiling again. But her eyes quickly took on a faraway look and her expression flattened, almost as though she were listening intently to something. Then she snapped back to reality and smiled at him again.

"No problem," she said. "Enjoy the rest of your day, sir. And I promise I'm not missing any classes. We're on lunch break right now." She winked then rose straight up into the air, away from the scene, angling toward the city as she climbed higher into the sky at a quick pace while all of the watching commuters gasped in collective awe, once again, and a few of them even fainted. Miles still didn't believe it. As he made his way back to the cab of his truck, he shook his head, wondering what sort of drugs the kids were doing these days that could give them that kind of strength and the ability to defy gravity.

_Crazy teenagers, _he thought_. What will they come up with next?_

_*_

_**Stonebriar Research Facility exterior, on the outskirts of Capitol City, approximately 11:15am…**_

Captain Carl Edwards stood outside of the 300 section of the Stonebriar Research Facility, looking up at the roof and shaking his head. Thick black smoke and hot orange flames licked out of the windows on every floor.

_This place is toast_, he thought. He wondered what he could be able to do about the scientists and workers trapped on the roof, not to mention whoever might still be trapped in the building. _Poor bastards. _He just didn't have enough information or equipment.

Ralph Stantz came up to his side, looking up. "Do you want the bad news, first, boss?" he asked. "Or do you want the worse news?"

Carl sighed. "What's the bad news?"

"The truck that has the ladder we need was involved in a major accident on its way here," Ralph explained.

Carl turned to him. "What's the worse news?"

Ralph grimaced. "We're starting to lose water pressure, and if the fire keeps burning like this, there are chemicals in the building that are very dangerous when inhaled."

"What are you saying, Ralph?"

"We probably won't be able to put out the fire for a few hours, at least. We can't help the people on the roof, if anyone's trapped inside they're done for, and when the chemicals in there got hot enough, the place will not only blow up, it will send all of that dangerous stuff out in a deadly cloud of smoke, and the wind will carry it right into the city."

Carl shook his head and turned back to the building. When he'd first started this job, the sight of all of those people up there- at least fifteen of them- would have broken his heart. They were all going to die. But he'd seen enough people die during his career that it didn't affect him that way anymore. Still, it was sad.

"What do you suggest, Ralph?" he asked.

"Pray," Ralph replied. "We need some kind of divine intervention."

"I don't know about divine intervention," a voice announced, "but maybe I can help."

They both turned when an awed gasp went through the gathered mass of news reporters in the periphery of the scene, and Carl looked up to see the strangest thing coming out of the sky- a teenaged girl, a red cape billowing out around her as she came down, facing him.

He stared at the girl, shocked. "Where did you come from?"

She gave him a wry smile. "That is a good question. But I think there are bigger problems to deal with right now than where I come from." She indicated the building. Carl gave her a quick once-over- she wore a homemade costume, and kept her hair out of her face with a white head band. He would have guessed her age to be sixteen or seventeen at most. He wondered what she was doing here.

"Get this kid out of here Ralph," he said, turning back to the building.

"Yes, sir," Ralph replied, reaching for the girl's arm. But she simply rose straight up into the air and hovered over them, out of his reach.

Now she had Carl's full attention. "Are you flying?" he asked, incredulous.

"Yes," she said. "Look, I'll get those people down from there. You just make sure you guys are ready to deal with smoke inhalation victims." She turned in the air and flew up to the roof.

Carl and Ralph exchanged a look. "What is she going to do?" Ralph asked. "Fly them down one at a time?"

"I don't know." Carl watched with interest. The girl landed on the roof and trotted over to one of the rectangular smokestacks reaching into the sky that dotted it. She then trotted over to the edge of the roof and looked at the ground. She turned back to the smokestack, and marched over to it. The panicked people on the roof stayed where they were- huddled, away from the flames and smoke, watching her, the same as everyone else who'd seen her descend from the sky.

The girl had put her hands on her hips and was staring at the smokestack when her eyes seemed to glow and the air in her sightline shimmered, something burning through the structure. It began to fall over when it had been completely severed. A collective gasp went through those gathered when the girl caught it, carried it over to the edge of the roof, and laid it down, creating a nearly perfect walkway for the people to evactuate.

She started waving the survivors over, yelling, "Come on! Let's go, let's go! Everybody, go down, take it one step at a time!" Only when the last one had made it to the ground safely did the girl step away from the edge of the roof and turn toward the fire. She put her hands on her hips again and took a deep breath, then simply blew the flames out. She disappeared in a flash and suddenly, on each floor- descending- flames began to go out in puffs of smoke, and within a half minute, all of the fire had been put out.

Carl and Ralph exchanged a look. "What the hell is going on?" Carl asked. "Who is this kid?"

Ralph shook his head. "Beats me." The girl emerged from the building completely unscathed, wiping her hands together as she strutted toward Carl and Ralph. They both just stared at her; neither knew what to say.

"Everybody made it out," she reported. "There were no bodies inside and all of the survivors who didn't make it out through the lower floor fire exits made it up on the roof." She looked back at the building. "It's a good thing I showed up when I did. Some of the chemicals I saw in there are pretty dangerous when inhaled, and if they'd exploded…" She shook her head and chuckled, "Well, I could have handled it, but it would have been a lot messier and you'd probably have some casualties on your hands. But I got here in time, so no worries."

"Thanks," Carl said, glancing at Ralph because he couldn't think of anything else to say.

She smiled. "You don't have to thank me, I'm happy to help out. We're all part of the same team as far as I'm concerned."

"What's your name?" Ralph blurted.

She raised an eyebrow when she looked at him. "Girl," she answered, and rose into the air. "Have a great day!" she added, waving at them before she rolled over up in the sky and headed away from the city at speed.

They waved back as she flew away.

Carl took off his hat. "I need a drink," he said, staring after her as she continued moving away from them, now just a dot high in the sky. "What do you think of _that_?"

Ralph shrugged, still looking after her. "If the city hires her, we're out of a job."

**Chapter Two**

"After School Activities"

_**Monroe building exterior, 45**__**th**__** floor, downtown Capitol City, 3:45pm…**_

Eugene Harden wiped his brow and looked down. It never ceased to amaze him how breathtaking a view of the drop from forty five floors up could be. He'd been cleaning buildings like this one for twenty five years, and one of these days, he would either finally quit or actually fall off of one. Of course, falling off of one was a ridiculous suggestion- Eugene was a pro, he knew what he was doing when he tethered himself to one of these things.

Turning back to his work, he waved at the office personnel inside and continued washing the windows. When he was finished with the immediate section, he adjusted his cabling and slipped the climbing cups back onto his palms, then moved up the glass to the forty-sixth floor. That was when one of the cups slipped and left his hand, and he did fall away from the skyscraper.

Giving a shout of surprise, he swung away from the building, dangling from his tethering line and glad it was secured at the top. But in the process, he lost another one of his cups, watching it fall down, down, to the ground below, and he realized that for the first time since he'd started this job, he was in trouble.

His coworkers had all gone to lunch, but Eugene had been in a groove, so he hadn't stopped what he was doing. This was strictly against company policy of course, but his supervisor liked to let grizzled vets like old Eugene do as they pleased. The sooner they finished the better, so that they could move on to a shorter building.

But he'd secured his line pretty tight, and was surprised when he suddenly dropped a couple of inches. From far above, pieces of concrete rained down and passed him, and he looked up, wondering if maybe it wasn't as secure as he'd first thought. Well, he'd just have to get up top before things got that bad, or lower himself the forty five floors before his line gave out. Eugene decided to go up top, since it was a shorter distance. He shook off his other suction cups and watched them all the way down to be sure they didn't hit anybody. Then, he started to pull himself up.

It was okay for a couple of floors, but then the line jerked, and he was worse off than when he'd started. Looking up, he saw more concrete falling his way, and the line gave out all together.

He was falling. It was an odd sensation. He turned his head to watch himself in the building glass, rolling onto his back. It was certainly better than watching the ground rush up to meet him. He'd prefer just to hit it unexpectedly, and get it over with. He saw a few surprised faces in the offices as he flew by, and he did allow himself one last moment to smile, surprised that he wasn't terrified, and he hadn't started to scream.

But in the reflection, he saw something even stranger than his reaction to falling to his death. A beautiful blonde girl was approaching- how, he didn't know- her arms extended in his direction and horizontal to the ground as she seemed to be flying through the sky. He cocked his head as she came up beneath him, certain he was hallucinating until when he felt himself being eased into her arms.

Eugene turned and stared at her. She couldn't have been more than eighteen years old. She certainly didn't look like a machine or an alien. How in God's name could she fly?

She smiled at him. "Going down," she quipped, slowing their descent, and angling her feet toward the ground.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked. "What the hell are you?"

"I'm saving you," she replied. "And I'm just a girl who's out here trying to make a difference." She brought them to a gentle landing to the sound of clapping, as people had gathered to watch and take pictures of the dramatic rescue.

He stared at the kid when she set him down and put a hand on his shoulder to steady him when he stumbled, looking up at him. "Thank you," he said. "I didn't mean to be rude. It's just…were you flying?"

She laughed. "Yes. People are asking me about that a lot today. And no, I don't know how exactly I do it. It's like flexing an extra muscle and it just happens."

"Wow, that's amazing!" he exclaimed, shaking his head and looking her over. "You're something else, kid."

She raised her eyebrows. "Thanks," she replied, and took off. He stared after her as the other people rushed forward, asking him questions and inquiring as to his condition. He wondered where she was off to, but figured he'd be able to catch the super girl on the evening news.

_**Capital City Airport, air traffic control tower, approximately 4:00pm**_

Robby Lang stared out the window, trying to get a look at the 747 aircraft he needed to somehow bring in for a safe landing. The plane had circled above until it ran out of fuel, unable to get stuck front landing gear to work so that the pilot could bring it in. On the runway, emergency response crews were at the ready, knowing that the pilot would not only be gliding in on fumes, he'd be doing it without fully functioning landing gear.

"How's it looking?" Robby asked, trying hard not to chew on his nails and keeping an eye on his radar to keep other planes from crossing into the now-dangerous landing space.

George Jeffries, a pilot Robby spoke to at least three times a week, responded, "As good as it can look with no fuel, broken landing gear, and 250 passengers and crew."

"Yeah, I know, not good." The 747 had circled one last time and now approached the runway selected for its crash. "Try to keep her steady, George. You don't want to knock off too much speed."

"Who's the pilot and who's the controller?" George replied with a chuckle. "I know what I'm doing, Robby." Robby was glad at least one of them could keep his sense of humor in a time of crisis like this. Though everyone in the room was aware of it, they still had other planes that needed watchful eyes and ears. Robby was the best they had at what he did, so he was working the certain crash.

"Hey, Rob?" Kristin Moyer tugged on his sleeve.

"Not now, Kris, I'm trying to talk to George," he said, covering the microphone of his headset. "We've got an incoming crash, remember?"

"Yeah, but…" Kristin was staring at her radar. "You need to see this."

Robby rolled his eyes. Kristin was fairly new at this and couldn't be expected to understand the gravity of the situation. A controlled crash was still a crash, and they were likely to lose more than a few passengers if not the entire plane on impact.

"What is it?" he snapped, and immediately wished he hadn't. A blip had appeared, thirty five miles out. Its designation was unknown. He frowned, and in the time it had taken him to do that, the blip had moved to thirty miles out. Then twenty. His eyes widened as he realized what it must be.

_Oh, no_. "George, you need to be ready!" he yelled into the microphone. Fifteen miles and closing.

"What is it? What's going on?" Ten miles.

"We've got an unidentified bogey, coming in from the southwest!" Robby glanced back at the screen. Five miles, now. "And it's coming in fast!" Only a missile could move that fast, and that could only mean terrorists had targeted the plane, a perfect storm of misfortune that Robby would unfortunately have to witness. The bogey was right on them now- and that was when he saw the person-sized red, white, and blue flash go by the air traffic control windows, toward the descending plane as it angled for the runway.

"What in the world was that?" Kristin cried, as nearly everyone got to their feet when the sonic boom of rushing air behind the thing rattled the windows. Robby reached for the binoculars he kept in his desk and put them up to his face, peering in the direction of the plane as George's voice came over his headset.

"I just saw the weirdest thing," he was saying. "Looked like a red flash coming from your direction."

"Hold, please," Robby replied, adjusting his view so he could see what it was.

He nearly fainted when he saw it- it looked like a teenage girl in a costume. Somehow, she'd flown up under the plane and had positioned herself near the broken front landing gear, reaching up into the mechanics of the device. As the plane continued down, she gave a yank and the gear came down. Everyone in the tower started to cheer when they saw it, and George came over the headset again.

"My landing gear is down!" he exclaimed. "I don't know how, but it's down and fully functional. This should make the landing a lot smoother, at least, even if we still are going to have an issue stopping."

"Hold, please," Robby repeated. He watched as the girl released the gear and hovered, allowing the plane to go by until she reached the midsection, at which point she angled her hands up and started moving along with it again. It nearly looked as though she were manually stabilizing it to aid in the landing.

"I've got a lot of control, here, all things considered," George murmured. "It's almost like I got my engines back." Robby heard him talking to other people in the cabin. "They're still down? You're kidding!"

The plane landed smoothly, and as soon as the wheels were firmly on the ground, the girl dropped from beneath the aircraft and moved around to its front, waving at the crew inside as she positioned herself near the nose, and from all appearances, she pushed up against it and _started slowing the plane down_.

George shouted, "Oh my God! Is that a-is that a _girl_?" She held onto the nose of the plane- making a face as she seemed to strain against it, a little- and the plane slowed more quickly than it would have if the engines were working. The rescue teams were cheering and clapping as it came to a complete stop.

The fire crews moved to secure the plane while she held it in place. Once they signaled to her that every was okay, the girl flew over to the door and pulled it off, the emergency escape unfolding down to the tarmac as EMTs rushed to attend to passengers. The kid didn't hang around long- she said something at the door to the passengers, then stepped off of the exit into the air and flew away, waving at everyone as she went. Robby followed her as best as he could, but she was fast and he lost her, though he did catch the sonic boom that sounded when she sharply accelerated and vanished once she'd reached what she obviously had deemed an appropriate height to move that fast.

All around him, everyone was cheering and celebrating, wondering at the miracle that had just happened, but Robby had seen her. It was just a teenage girl.

A teenage girl who could fly, who was strong enough to pull down a plane's landing gear barehanded, control the aircraft's descent with ease, bring it to a complete stop under her own power, then rip off a door that should have required hydraulics to open. What the hell was going on?

_**Danvers Residence, Leesburg, approximately 4:45pm…**_

Linda Lee Danvers parked her car in the driveway of her family's home suburban Leesburg home and took a deep breath, adjusting her glasses on her face and making sure not one mousy brown hair was out of place. _Here goes._ She got out of the car and walked up to the door, letting herself in.

"Hi, Mom!" she called. "I'm home!"

Mrs. Danvers replied, "Linda, honey! Can you come here, please?" She had to be in the living room. Linda could hear the TV. She cursed under her breath and set her school bag down, then headed in that direction.

Her mother was sitting on the couch, folding clothes. "How was school?" she asked, without looking up.

"Um, school was fine," Linda replied. "You know. Just another day, nothing exciting."

"Uh huh," Mrs. Danvers said. She picked up the remote and flipped to the news.

_"Reports are coming in of a miraculous saving-" _

Mrs. Danvers flipped the channel.

_"The fire would have claimed fifteen lives and many more if not for the miracle from above-"_

Mrs. Danvers flipped the channel again.

_"She just came out of nowhere, fixed the landing gear, and landed the damn plane with her bare hands-"_

She turned to her daughter as the television continued extolling the virtues of a strange, costumed teenager who could fly. "Something you'd like to tell me, hon?"

Linda sighed– she knew all about those news stories, because she was the girl they were all talking about. She whirled, stripping her exterior clothing, her fake glasses, and her brown wig, and gestured when she stopped. Her mother clicked her tongue and shook her head as Linda sat down on the loveseat beside the couch her mother occupied, sweeping her cape from under her body and putting her chin in her hand once she'd settled in. "I knew you'd find out, of course."

"You realize now that you've let the genie out of the bottle, you can't put it back in?" Mrs. Danvers asked, gesturing to Linda's costume.

"I know," Linda replied. "I'll be careful, Mom. That's why you guys have been making me wear that silly wig and those glasses the last two years, ever since my hair went blonde for no reason. Nobody is going to think I'm the super girl." She looked at her costume. "I always wear baggy clothes so nobody knows I'm built like this. I've been really careful. I have practiced using all of my powers. I didn't miss classes or anything, nobody even noticed I was gone, and I helped a bunch of people. It's not a big deal."

"It's a very big deal," Mrs. Danvers snapped. "And we've talked about this, Linda. I can't believe you made a costume and went out like that without at least discussing it again with your father and me. What were you thinking?"

**Chapter Three**

"Late Blooming"

_**Two years ago…**_

Linda Lee Danvers was about as plain and non-descript as a person could be. It would later be just as well, but it wasn't something that made her life any easier. Five feet six inches tall, she was rail-thin with no curves whatsoever, wore thick glasses and had messy, mousy brown hair that she had no idea what to do with. She was pale and lately had developed acne, and since she didn't use make up, she just left it alone. A clumsy nerd, now age fourteen, she'd pretty much accepted that this was how things were going to be for her, but she had a talent for science and had proven to be incredibly smart, knowing that one day those attributes would pay off for her. It still sucked being in high school, though. No one paid any attention to her.

But this day, things were definitely different when she stared into the mirror at her own reflection, her jaw agape in abstract horror. Her hair wasn't mousy brown anymore. In fact, it was blonde and tangle free. It had been the same old brown mess when she'd gone to bed the night before.

Then there was the fact that she could see her reflection quite clearly, but wasn't wearing her glasses. She'd needed glasses since age six and normally couldn't see three feet in front of her without them. Yet, this morning, they hung from her limp fingertips, now useless and forgotten as Linda's mind tried to accept that the girl in the mirror was, in fact, one Linda Lee Danvers.

Her other hand touched her suddenly smooth, seemingly sun-toned skin, and her lower lip started to quiver. She'd been as pale as a Russian in mid-winter when she'd gone to bed the night before. On top of that, she seemed to have developed quite a figure overnight.

Linda turned first one way, then the other, admiring herself. _Wow!_ she thought. _I'm hot!_ She'd always worn baggy clothes to conceal how thin she was, sometimes using multiple layers to make herself not seem so skinny, but that would no longer be necessary- she looked fit as a fiddle and had excellent muscle tone in addition to having developed very nice, womanly curves. _What the heck is going on?_

She somehow knew that being clumsy wouldn't be a problem for her any more. Her movements were too controlled, too graceful. Always before, she'd had trouble with fluid movements and just couldn't keep herself from destroying things by accident or tripping over her own feet. But now she had complete control of her body, a sort of confidence about it she'd never felt before. She twirled in the mirror, then ran her fingers through her silky hair and put her hands on her hips.

This was weird, to say the least. This was strange. Otherworldly. She had to be dreaming.

"Uh, Mom?" she shouted.

"What's the matter, hon?" Edna Danvers called from downstairs. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Not exactly," Linda yelled back, setting her glasses on the bathroom sink. "Can you come up here?"

"Sure." She could hear her mother- even though Linda was adopted, Edna Danvers would always be her mother as far as Linda was concerned- shuffling some pans around then walking to and up the stairs.

As she approached the bathroom, she said, "What is this all about-? Oh, my God!" Edna put a hand to her mouth and stared at her daughter with wide eyes. _"Linda?"_

Linda gestured helplessly at her reflection. "I don't know what happened. Look at me!"

The doorbell chose that moment to ring. Linda and Edna locked eyes.

"Karen," they said in unison.

*

"You stall her; I'm going to my room." Linda slipped past Edna then paused at her bedroom door. "Mom, I can't go to school like this. It's too weird. They won't even know I'm me!"

Edna nodded. "I'll come up with something, you just get dressed," she said, and went downstairs.

Karen Starr stood in the doorway- she'd let herself in- and stood, chewing gum and waiting. Edna had no idea why she stayed friends with Linda. Despite being a freshman, Karen was the captain of the varsity pep squad, and there was no question that she was a beautiful girl. Linda always talked about how popular her best friend had become at school. The two had known each other since they were toddlers, and Karen had had charisma even then. She'd learned to talk at age 2, and Linda had followed soon after by making astute observations. But despite the differences in how the two had grown, Karen had turned out to be quite loyal, and refused to stop hanging out with her oldest and best friend, regardless of Linda's social status at their school.

"Hi, Mrs. D.," she said, cheerful as always. "Is Linda ready?" Edna smiled, even though she was very worried at the change in her daughter, and gave Karen a hug.

"Not yet, so if you could wait in the kitchen, that'd be great." Karen rolled her eyes.

"She's always late," she complained. "Anything I can do to speed things up?"

"Just wait for us, okay?" Edna started up the stairs as Karen headed for the kitchen. She found Linda staring at herself in the mirror, holding her glasses up—squinting through them- then pulling them back down and adjusting her eyes.

"Mom," Linda said. "I can see."

"What?"

"I mean, I can see through my glasses." She put them on and widened her pupils. They made her look a little bug-eyed behind the frames. "And I can see without them." She took off the lenses and her pupils adjusted back to normal. "This is really weird."

"Well, I think you should wear the glasses." Edna came forward and helped put them back on Linda's face. "And we're going to have to get you into some baggy clothes. The change in your figure is- well, it isn't normal."

Linda brightened. "Why would I hide it? This is my ticket out of dorkville! No way."

"Linda, I don't think it's a good idea for anyone to know about the...changes in your autonomy."

"Mom…"

"Just trust me, okay? There will be a day when that makes sense, but it isn't time yet."

Linda narrowed her eyes and regarded her mom with suspicion. "What are you talking about?"

"Linda, please. We have to get you ready for school. Just go with me on this, okay? You'll know when it's time for you, your father and I to sit down and discuss some things. That day is not today." Edna added a bit of a plea to her voice. "Please?"

Linda sighed. "Okay. I'll wear baggy clothes for a while. But you have to tell me if you know what's going on."

"I don't know yet. But I promise, we'll figure it out." Edna took a deep breath. "I think we can fix your hair. I'll be right back." She slipped out of the room and went to the master suite, where she still had a couple of wigs that she'd worn from an unfortunate incident back in college where she'd woken up hung over and with a shaved head.

She came back with the wig to find Linda in baggy jeans and a baggy hooded sweatshirt, her glasses pushed up on her nose. Linda spied the wigs and held up her hands.

"No way."

"Linda, sweetie, we can make this look like nothing happened. You can't let anyone see you with your hair so much different than they're used to! It's too big of a change."

"I can tell people I dyed it."

"No. Just wear the wig." Edna walked over and grabbed Linda's hair, pulling it up and under as she slipped the wig onto Linda's head, ran her fingers through it to mess up her hair, and then tied the wig hair into a sloppy pony tail. Smoothing the sides a little, she stepped back. Aside of the deepening of her complexion, and the inexplicable disappearance of Linda's acne, which had been bad, but not so bad a new treatment couldn't explain it away, she looked like frumpy, nerdy Linda with the bug-eyed glasses. Edna put her hands on her hips and stared. Something was off about her daughter's appearance. Linda stared back at her, clearly unhappy but surprisingly accepting of her mother's desires.

"What is it, Mom?" Linda asked.

"You used to hunch."

"Oh, Mom…"

"Just do it."

Linda sighed, let her shoulders sag, and hunched over a bit. "Just when I was starting to feel good about myself," she muttered, grabbing her book bag and brushing past Edna.

*

While descending the stairs, it occurred to Linda that she was running late and that she should hurry- and then she was suddenly at the stairway landing before it made a left, ninety-degree angle turn toward the kitchen. She was so surprised to have advanced so quickly that she fell the rest of the way down the stairs and ended up on her back, looking up at the ceiling, waiting for the pain of the bumps and bruises to kick in.

"Oh my God! Are you okay?" Karen cried, rushing to her. But the pain never came. Sure, Linda had felt the bumps as she tumbled to the floor, but it didn't hurt at all.

_Weird_, she thought, and even weirder was how she'd ended up falling in the first place. It was almost as though thinking that she should be moving faster had, in fact, made her advance in the blink of an eye down the stairs. She allowed Karen to help her to her feet, again surprised that nothing hurt as her friend fussed over her.

"You need to be more careful, Linda!" she scolded, as Mrs. Danvers came rushing down the stairs to see what was wrong.


End file.
